If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in
thy pride;
Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the
head and the hide.
The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must
eat where it lies;
And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or
he dies.
The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may
do what he will,
But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat
of that Kill.
Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his
Pack he may claim
Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may
refuse him the same.
Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her
year she may claim
One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may
deny her the same.
Cave-Right is the right of the Father--to hunt by himself
for his own.
He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the
Council alone.
Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe
and his paw,
In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of the Head
Wolf is Law.
Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and
mighty are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch
and the hump is--Obey!
THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT
The night we felt the earth would move
We stole and plucked him by the hand,
Because we loved him with the love
That knows but cannot understand.
And when the roaring hillside broke,
And all our world fell down in rain,
We saved him, we the Little Folk;
But lo! he does not come again!
Mourn now, we saved him for the sake
Of such poor love as wild ones may.
Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake,
And his own kind drive us away!
Dirge of the Langurs.
There was once a man in India who was Prime Minister of one of the
semi-independent native States in the north-western part of the country.
He was a Brahmin, so high-caste that caste ceased to have any particular
meaning for him; and his father had been an important official in the
gay-coloured tag-rag and bobtail of an old-fashioned Hindu Court. But
as Purun Dass grew up he felt that the old order of things was changing,
and that if any one wished to get on in the world he must stand well
with the English, and imitate all that the English believed to be good.
At the same time a native official must keep his own master’s favour.
This was a difficult game, but the quiet, close-mouthed young Brahmin,
helped by a good English education at a Bombay University, played it
coolly, and rose, step by step, to be Prime Minister of the kingdom.
That is to say, he held more real power than his master the Maharajah.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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